Hi. Workshopping writing is one of my favorite aspects of teaching writing. I really enjoy focusing on one person's writing with a group of people and having feedback helping that writer move that project forward. Today we're going to be thinking about what the purposes are for workshopping writing and what the different roles are, and then there will be some sample workshops that you can watch. I also encourage you now to begin thinking about how you can make use of this incredible community that you have here, so that you can have your writing workshopped and participate in a writing workshop, even if you didn't have the opportunity to do it with our disciplinary consultants. You can use the Google Hangout tool to try to find a way to workshop your writing with other people. When you are in a workshop, if you are a responder, these are the things that you should think about. Remember, you become a better writer by reading and responding to other people's writing. So, even though it's important to, as a responder, feel a sense of generosity, that you want to be giving feedback for that person, there's always also an element of your thinking about your own projects. So keep your own writing and your own project in mind whenever you're responding. Read carefully. Be attentive to other people's writing. Try not to just quickly skim through it and assume you know what it is, but spend actually time thinking about that person's writing to give him or her feedback. Feedback should be relevant to the project; it should be specific, and it should be productive. So, if you say that you think that the writer's writing is really good, you ought to point out specifically why it's good and specifically where it's good. It's so nice to have someone say, “Let's turn to page two here, and let me read these two sentences because I think here, you make a really strong move in illustrating your point,” right? And then you read the other person's writing back. That's really incredible. Respond to the writer's own questions in addition to whatever it is that you notice. So if are responding to me, and I have this ongoing concern that I'm too wordy or lengthy, right; you want to address that concern as well as whatever else you notice. And then I'll reiterate again: Think about your own project too. And after a workshop, spend time; even if it's, like, 30 seconds, spend a little bit of time making what I would call a revision plan, based on the workshop. So based on reading Comer’s draft, I'm going to model my own project on this kind of an introduction. But I've also now realized that my shorter paragraphs are actually more effective, right, than her longer ones, or something like that. So do a revision plan based on what the workshop was. As the writer in a workshop, you also have certain roles and responsibilities, and here is what I would suggest for you: Read your text aloud. This is so enormously helpful. Often we think we know what we're reading, but when you read it aloud, you hear it in another voice, and you notice things that you wouldn't have otherwise noticed. So please do read your writing aloud, and have an implement or the keyboard or some kind of way of making changes or notes along the way as you're reading aloud because you're going to find things that you want to change. Have questions to bring to the workshop. When a workshop leader asks you, “What are your main concerns about this project; what would you especially like feedback on?” have two or three things to say. Try to avoid saying, “I just want to know what you think,” or “I just want to know if it's good,” or the other one I always get is, “I want to know if the flow is good.” And it's probably just me, but I don't really know what that means. So I'm not sure if it means the whole structure of the argument, or the organization, or the transition sentences, or the cohesion within paragraphs. So anyways, try to be a little more specific. And if you want to address flow, then name a little bit more of what those concerns are. Listen quietly while you're getting feedback. Workshops can get derailed if you, as a writer, interrupt someone giving feedback and spend time saying, “Well what I meant to do was this,” or “I thought I was doing this,” or “That's a super good idea; I'm going to do this and this and this.” You are kind of wasting your resource of valuable time, so the workshop should be for the responders to give you feedback that you can then synthesize and process later on your own. I don't think you have to be totally quiet during a workshop if they're talking about your writing, but you should at least try to reduce the amount that you would say. Take notes so that you can remember the feedback that's being provided for you. Even if you think you'll remember it, you might not, so you want to take notes. Be open to feedback, too. We already discussed in another video how writers become sometimes overly attached to their writing. And you might really like a certain idea or really be enthusiastic about the way you have phrased something, but the purpose of a workshop is to be willing to hear and think about how readers are reading your work, and that might not match necessarily how enthusiastic you are about a particular sentence or paragraph, so be receptive. Then, as with the responders, write a revision plan after the workshop. Based on all of this feedback that you have, where do you want to go from here? And I'll again say, you don't have to spend 10, 15, 20 minutes doing this; I think you can accomplish a lot by writing a revision plan in 30 seconds or 45 seconds. Just jot down a few notes for yourself so that when you return to that project, you'll have a sense of exactly what you were hoping to do. Happy workshopping.
